2004 makes me crazy - all of the winners drive me nuts. As happy as I am for Freeman and Blanchett to have Oscars at that point, my votes given these choices are easily Cheadle, Winslet, Owen and Portman, all of whom I adore. Also, wouldn't it be so much better if Winslet won for this instead of The Reader? (Actually my #1 choice for Actress was Thurman, who couldn't even manage a nomination. Swank vs. Bening as the conversation when Winslet and Staunton were right there - insanity. It was like watching 1999 Actress when they were bringing their C or D game.)

Excited to hear your conversation on 2004. Such a great film year, and personally, it was one of the years where Oscar and I had the least in common. When the only winner in the top 8 I really loved is Eternal Sunshine (which felt robbed overall), and when the Best Picture nominees could have been chosen from Bad Education, Before Sunset, Birth, Closer, Collateral, Eternal Sunshine, Hotel Rwanda and Kill Bill Vol. 2, not to mention the brilliant writing and supporting performances in Mean Girls and Saved... I just can't. Shame on Oscar.

I think the 2004 Best Actress really missed some well loved performances now we look back 10 years later Kidman,Thurman,Delpy,the Actor race seems laughable with Depp in there and I wish Linney's spot had gone to an OTT MERYL in the Manchurian Candidate at least she was having fun like Blanchett unlike snorefests like Linney and Okenedo doin' the supporting wife bit.

mark - ugh no i still count taht as streep's worst performance. there were so many worthy people in 2004. like Patty Clarkson in Dogville, Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill vol 2, Dunst in eternal sunshine, etcetera a dozen people better than streep OR linney that year

So excited to hear the rest of the 2004 podcast! Fingers crossed for some Bad Education talk.

As for this go-around, oh how I wish I was more onboard with Godzilla, but you guys I just do. not. get. it. Not even a little bit. Some beautiful moments, and certainly more than would be in a normal blockbuster but ugh, such lazy, half-assed storytelling. Also, how many scenes are we going to get of Joe White Guy barking orders at soon-to-die nameless, faceless brown guys? Would it really have been that hard to cast Ken Watanabe in the Bryan Cranston role?

So my favorite blockbuster of the summer is probably Neighbors, and while I also liked Only Lovers Left Alive, I saw that in January, so my overall summer pick is going to be Obvious Child which I saw last week and was really surprised by. Lovely little movie.

GRAND indeed,i know it's hammy verging on camp but we get to so little of it these days and I think this performance was a pre run for Meryl's dragon lady specials of Doubt,Rendition,The Iron Lady and August Osage County.

Ugh, yes. Need to devour this episode now. Soon as I saw Hiddleston and Tilda, I knew I'd love it. Only Lovers Left Alive was SUCH a fabulous movie-going experience when I saw it last month at a moody and very late 11pm Friday showing, it'll probably end up in my top ten of the year but it breaks my black cold heart that the movie barely got a release since it was SO good and my favorite Jim Jarmusch since... the first third of Mystery Train? Idk.

Anyways, any attention is good attention for that dark little gem. And so funny too!

For me, the movie of the summer was Cold in July. It's incredibly entertaining, first of all, and turns on a dime 3 or 4 times seamlessly. It's a pseudo western giallo revenge detective mash up. It touches on some of the same themes and ideas as True Detective, but does it so much more interestingly and with less of a sense of its own prestige.

OMG Joe Reid is totally my spirit animal on this podcast - we are both excited by the same weekend (for Lucy and Step Up: All In - CAN'T WAIT!!!!!) and are both still floored by Natalie Portman in Closer (I actually remember thinking at the time that she really was going to win, despite knowing that she stood no chance since the Academy clearly didn't love the film very much).

I am also freaking RELIEVED to hear that How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a worthy sequel. I love the first SO. MUCH.

Re: the mostly lame 2004 Oscar winners, can we just go back into a time machine and switch up the ballots so that it looks like Kill Bill: Vol 2 and Mean Girls actually made an impact on the voters? That Supporting Actress lineup alone would be so much more exciting with Daryl Hannah and Rachel McAdams infecting some wicked fun into the proceedings.

BTW I too rewatched all of Kill Bill thanks to Netflix recently streaming it and my love for that whole project (especially Vol 2) just grew more than I thought it could. Uma, David and Daryl would all have had my votes that year.

And I'm with whomever said they loved Leo in The Aviator. I actually think it's up there with Gilbert Grape, Catch Me and The Departed as one of his very best, most fully accomplished works.

Wasn't Streisand presenting Director to Clint (first time) a mea culpa on the Academy's part for snubbing her in director for "The Prince of Tides" the year prior? It couldn't have been a coincidence that she was presenting that category of all things at exactly that time. I doubt she'd lower herself to present any of the lower categories (except Song, b/c you know), but it's only the high profile categories for Babs from now on!